[Mhiz Rebecca]

The Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN) is set to
take off as the Federal Government has concluded
the selection process of the executive
management team of the development financing
institution and has equally applied for an
operating license from the Central Bank of
Nigeria (CBN).
The team, however, is being kept under wraps as
attempts to get the federal ministry of finance
officials to divulge the details of the team was
rebuffed yesterday. They insisted that the Finance
Minister Kemi Adeosun would unveil the team at a
briefing next week.
The $1.3 billion (N396.5 billion) Development
Bank of Nigeria is jointly funded by the World
Bank (WB), KfW (German Development Bank), the
African Development Bank (AfDB) and the Agence
Française de Development (French Development
Agency). The bank is also finalising agreements
with the European Investment Bank (EIB) for
more investment.
The DBN’s major mandate is to spur growth
through financing of projects, particularly the
medium, small and medium scale industries
.Director of Press in the Federal Ministry of
Finance, Alhaji Salisu Dambatta said: “The DBN
will provide loans to all sectors of the economy
including, manufacturing, services and other
industries not currently served by existing
development banks thereby filling an important
gap in the provision of finance to Micro, Small
and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).”
Dambatta also said that as a wholesale bank, the
DBN would lend wholesale to microfinance banks,
which would provide medium to long-term loans
to MSMEs. Dambatta further clarified that the
operations of the DBN would not in any way result
in the elimination of other sectoral development
financing institutions like the Bank of Industry
(BOI), Bank of Agriculture (BoA) or any other
existing development bank.